This is where I see myself in five years
Actually, I can’t see that far.
Actually, I can’t see that far.
A couple of weeks ago I was having lunch with my friends Zack and Nina. I can’t remember exactly what we were discussing but it must have been something interesting. It usually is. Suddenly, Zack asks me the following question:
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I haven’t been to an interview in a long time so I was caught off guard. I didn’t have a good enough, well rehearsed and politically correct answer to give. Then again, I wasn’t being actually interviewed for a job so I told him the honest truth. The truth is, I think that planning five years ahead is pointless if not counterproductive. I am sure that every lifestyle/productivity guru on the internet is having a meltdown right now. However, let me explain.
Presumably, setting a long term goal means the outcome is important to you. It is probably something that will make you happy and make you feel like a more accomplished person. Or will it? We’ve talked about this before. What you think will make you happy doesn’t always make you happy. You just may end up on the hamster wheel chasing the next goal.
More importantly, the goals that you set for yourself today might not even be applicable five years from now. Let me give you a concrete example. I’ll steal this one from Nina because it works out perfectly. She mentioned that one of her friends has five year goal to open up her own brewery. That sounds really fun right? However, how sure is this friend that brewing beer is what she really wants to do? Five years from now, her priorities could change completely. Has she spent enough time brewing beer for herself? Is she sure that running her own business is something that she wants?
Another mistake a lot of people make when setting their long term goals is making goals that are outside of their control. For example, you can set a goal for yourself to get married. Is that a good goal? I don’t think so. Yes, one way to hand over more control to yourself is to lower your expectations but I don’t think that’s what you had in mind when committing to this five years earlier.
So far I’ve just been warming up. Sure, all of the above is true, but the real reason five year goals are pointless is much simpler. The unpredictability of life makes it so. For example, five years ago I was happily living in Canada when all of a sudden I got an opportunity to work at a much fancier company for much fancier pay. All my five year plans had to be abandoned (if I had any). Two days ago my wife came back from Portugal and is convinced life is better over there. What’s my five year plan now?
I can hear all the detractors from my couch grumbling under their breath about how I just don’t understand the goal setting process. It doesn’t have to be this specific or set in stone. That’s true! However, how generic are you thinking? The reality is that once you make it somewhat generic, everyone wants roughly the same. Everyone wants to be healthier, stronger, better looking with a devoted spouse and a killer job. So what? How are you getting there? The devil is in the details.
I am not here just to be a complainypants. I also like to propose solutions. So here it goes: Do whatever you do to set your five year goal but set it for only one year ahead. Do this every year. At the end of the year, reevaluate and readjust. A year is generally enough to set substantial but achievable goals. At the same time, when things change — either your surrounding or your opinions — you have plenty of opportunity to reevaluate what you value and where you’re heading.
You can experiment with shorter periods of time as well, however, I suspect that if you do this too frequently, you won’t be giving yourself enough time to complete the goal. At the same time, you’ll be giving yourself a lot of opportunities to quit. One year seems like a good balance between some level of accountability and flexibility.
The key to make this recurring one year goal work is the reevaluation part of the process. Each year, you must check back on the goals you set for yourself in the beginning of year and evaluate your performance. Furthermore, reevaluate if you want to continue with this goal. Finally, and most importantly, step up the difficulty level of the goal.
I think of this as “managed personal growth”. Effai of 2018 should be better in every way than Effai of 2017. If not, Effai wasted 2017. The only way I would know this is if I was accountable to my goals.
Here’s my self grading for 2017
A nice and unexpected benefit from this system is that in 2022 I’ll get to see my 2017 goals and have a good laugh at how little I expected of myself.